My Autobiography: Principle Edition - Annotated and Expanded

Ghostwritten for American readers and fronted by former U.S. ambassador Richard Washburn Child, this book fuses memory with stagecraft—mythologizing Il Duce's childhood and early socialist years, all the way up to the March on Rome, exalting discipline and will, and recasting private temperament as national fascist destiny. Both performance of power and work of self‑invention, My Autobiography (1928) shows Benito Mussolini at the height of authority, "narrating" his rise from provincial agitator to head of a one‑party state. This edition restores the original 1928 English text and photographic plates and sets them against the historical record. A new Publisher’s Introduction and an extensive, line‑by‑line critical apparatus annotate claims about violence, legality, economy, empire, and race—documenting squad coercion and press control, the demolition of parliamentary checks, the corporative system, and the road that led to the 1938 racial laws and colonial wars in Libya and Ethiopia. A detailed chronology and concise notes make the memoir legible as a primary source in which propaganda performs as confession and the evidence answers back.Why this editionRestored text & plates: the 1928 English text with period images, carefully reproduced.Unsparing annotation: hundreds of brief, targeted notes keyed to specific phrases; rhetoric is identified, facts are supplied.Editorial framing: Child’s role as paid publicist is explained; ghostwriting, serialization, and U.S. reception are contextualized.Historical toolkit: clear signposts on the March on Rome, the Matteotti murder, OVRA, the Acerbo law, “Quota 90,” the colonial campaigns, and the 1938 racial laws.For study & teaching: suitable for courses on fascism, interwar Italy, propaganda, media history, and modern authoritarianism.For readers of: annotated classics; primary sources on fascism; Italian history (1919–1945); media and propaganda studies; modern European history. Read more